Justin, 7/97

His-Agape
is not
   without practicality;
chiding the lost into a place of Grace

talking baldly of techno-lust
we watched the hangliders dip and glide

guilds of our hearts

We sat, godless,
the cold concrete bunker.

To the north, Alcatraz.

Conversions in War, in Prison
moments of skew time
unleash religion

The convalescent atheist,
tapering to death
will whisper confession as the long asymptote
reaches discontinuity

We will plead with God, too, when we are close
I will be self-righteous and ask for my due
You will apologize and beg and note unworthiness
We each will have the sinking terror
knowing discontinuity is absence,
and yet, we do believe, with clay feet.

The old men
Luther, Erasmus, Kant
cluck and tsk over we
tiny angels-to-be
They frolic outside the Martian domes
leave tiny canal footprints in the rich red dust

From a thousand feet, and dropping
Our Fathers   look like pebbles.


--2/11/98